YESclima – Young experts for climate-friendly schools in Mediterranean countries

The objective of the YESclima project is to train young energy experts to carry out energy audits in primary schools and to provide advice to the municipalities involved in the project. With their practice and additional training, the project goal is to increase their chances of working while at the same time contributing to reducing emissions from heating and cooling in public buildings.

Project

Among those affected by the high levels of youth unemployment in Greece and southern Spain are young people who are already qualified in energy efficiency and renewable energy. At the same time, there are many urgent tasks to be performed in this sector. In this project, young experts will be trained in comprehensive energy audits, including economic aspects and, in particular, how to design, calculate and evaluate passive conditioning techniques in schools. The project has the following practical goals: 1. to improve the indoor climate and thermal comfort for teachers and pupils. 2. to provide energy savings in the heating and cooling of buildings, and thus also economic savings for the local authorities that manage the schools, thereby reducing CO2 emissions from the schools. 3. to increase awareness among the communities involved, especially in the schools themselves, of the urgent need to save energy and to generate it in a more environmentally friendly way. 4. to step up efforts to train unemployed young people and provide secure jobs working on the transformation towards a climate-friendly energy system.

First project meeting in Cadiz in October 2018. Photo: Project

Background

Natural heating and cooling methods use less energy and are frequently more economical. However, many educational buildings in Spain and Greece use expensive and energy-consuming air conditioning instead of more climate-friendly solutions. The condition of most of the educational centres should be improved. Many of them have poor insulation and are consequently too cold in the winter and too warm in summer. More climate-friendly solutions such as ‘green air conditioning’ are rarely used. Buildings and heating are generally two sources of high energy waste.

EUKI

This project is part of the European Climate Initiative (EUKI) of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU). It is the overarching goal of the EUKI to foster climate cooperation within the European Union (EU) in order to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.